


Worth It

by cgf_kat



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Hurt Lance (Voltron), Hurt/Comfort, Lance (Voltron) is a Mess, Plance AU Week 2018, Torture, Whump, plangst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-27
Updated: 2018-08-27
Packaged: 2019-07-03 01:49:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,687
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15808878
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cgf_kat/pseuds/cgf_kat
Summary: “I could just kill her,” Ezor shrugs. “Maybe that would get your attention.”“No!”Most of the others move too, now, but more guards pouring in, more guns, and a warning shot at the ceiling or two and it’s clear they’re helpless. Pidge is starting to turn blue, and Lance’s head is spinning. No no NO...***From a Plangst Prompt on tumblr, to extend one of the scenes where the team was captured.





	Worth It

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! I'd love to hear what you think!

When Ezor takes a step toward Pidge, something in Lance snaps. If he’s honest, everything is a blur until seconds later when he’s on the ground with a gun in his face, joints aching and the sound of his own voice shouting echoing in his ears.

Don’t you touch her! He doesn’t know where it came from. Of course he wouldn’t want ANY of his friends hurt, but…

And now Ezor has Pidge against a wall hanging by the neck of her suit, and he couldn’t have done anything more, but his stomach is in knots all the same.

He’s never seen Pidge look that scared. Not that she hasn't been. They’ve all been scared. But she doesn't show it to the rest of them. If she shows them anything she shows them anger. Determination. Not this. 

Ezor is looking her up and down while her feet flail against the wall, as if trying to determine the best place to start, and Lance thinks he might throw up. No no no…

“You don’t have to do this,” Hunk says. “Come on, why would we be lying?”

“I don’t know,” Ezor counters. “Why would you be?” She seems to make a decision. She grabs for Pidge’s bound hands and catches a finger. 

Pidge is trying to pull it away and the others’ mouths are already opening in protest while Lance is trying to compute. His shout comes out the same instant as Pidge’s strangled cry when the bone breaks.

“No! Hey!” 

“Leave her alone!” Keith growls.

Zethrid shrugs. “Then tell us where Lotor is, and where the rest of you have been.”

Ezor smirks. “Or things get really interesting.” Before any of them can respond to that, she grabs at Pidge’s hands again and an audible cracking sound echoes through the small cell.

Lance is on his feet in an instant as Pidge shouts, pointedly ignoring any aches from being tossed across the room a moment ago. “Stop it!”

Pidge. Oh, Pidge. She’s groaning under her breath, but she’s still glaring. There are obvious tears building up in her eyes but her teeth are bared in spite, and Lance’s stomach twists on him again. It leaves him gasping through his own anger from where he’s trapped by the gun still trained on him. 

At least he isn’t the only one. The others look pretty well ready to murder someone, too. Ezor and Zethrid are simply taking in their expressions with glee.

“You can stop me; just tell us the truth,” Ezor says in a voice that’s almost singsong. 

“We told you, he’s dead!” Keith answers again. 

“Wrong answer.” She goes for Pidge’s neck now and starts to squeeze. Pidge flails harder, kicks out, whining as loudly as she can without air. 

Lance surges forward and finds the butt of a gun pressed directly into his chest to hold him back. “What are you doing!”

“I could just kill her,” Ezor shrugs. “Maybe that would get your attention.” 

“No!”

Most of the others move too, now, but more guards pouring in, more guns, and a warning shot at the ceiling or two and it’s clear they’re helpless. Pidge is starting to turn blue, and Lance’s head is spinning. No no NO...

“WHY do you think we’re lying?” Shiro questions desperately. “We don’t know anymore about this situation than you do! How can we convince you of that?”

“I guess you can’t.”

Ezor doesn’t care. Zethrid doesn’t either. Pidge is going to DIE and they don’t CARE…

When Pidge slumps Lance moves without thinking again. He can’t think. All he can see is her eyes closing and he can’t let her die. Not like this. He hears himself screaming but he’s pretty sure it isn’t even words this time. He doesn’t know how he ducks past the guard at his chest and into Ezor’s back, but he hears the laser gunfire around him. Voices shouting, but he can’t tell who.

“Pidge!

“Lance!”

Something burns, somewhere around his hip. Maybe adrenaline is keeping the majority of the pain away for now because he’s on the ground and he’s pretty sure he’s been shot. But Ezor and Pidge are on the ground too and Pidge is gasping. She’s alive. 

“Lance…?” Her eyes are wide and her voice comes out hoarse, but she’s alive.

Pidge reaches out to him, as if questioning if he’s all right, and that’s not right he should be making sure she’s all right…

He meets her eyes, but he doesn’t get the chance to make any words come out. Something snags him at the back of his armor collar and he’s hoisted up and into the air again. 

“Lance!”

He isn’t thrown quite as far this time, but his body hits the wall in a way that knocks much more air out of him than the floor did a few minutes ago. His head bounces off metal and when he lands on his knees on the ground he can’t see straight. It takes a long, painful moment to get a breath.

“There’s adorable, and then there’s annoying,” Zethrid is saying. “Guess which one you’ve just crossed into?”

Everything is blurry when he looks up, but he can make out the two Galran former generals glaring at him, and his friends’ worried faces behind them. 

“I’m always annoying.” He’s going for threatening and cocky as he gets back to his feet, but it doesn’t come out that way. His voice is too winded. 

Zethrid sneers. “We could kill this one instead. Might be more fun.”

“Don’t you dare!” Pidge snarls. 

Ezor ignores her and shrugs. “Why not? I’ll hold him for you.”

Lance barely has time to flinch before she’s on him, pushing into the wall by his neck and pinning his bound wrists above his head. 

“Wait wait wait! Don’t!” Hunk shouts.

Allura is back on her feet, ignoring the priming guns. “We are telling you the truth! Please!”

Zethrid is cracking her knuckles, and Lance’s stomach drops. He wishes he could say something to the others, but he can’t get anything out with most of his air cut off. His feet still have some purchase and he tries to push away from the wall with his feet, but Ezor is too strong for him. 

At least if he’s going to die he did it saving someone...and for some reason he feels particularly satisfied that it was Pidge, but…

Tears prick at the corners of his eyes as his legs continue to flail of their own volition, pushing uselessly against the wall, his bach arching since he can’t move his arms or head and his body is straining for more than the thin stream of air he has left. People are still shouting and it’s starting to sound more faint to him. He’d hoped he would he at least see his family again…

Is this it? he thinks faintly. They’re just going to suffocate him and be done with it? Zethrid seemed angrier than that. Lance forces his eyes open - he hadn’t realized he’d clenched them shut - and he almost wishes he hadn’t looked. 

Any tentative hold he still had on standing is put to an end by the first crushing blow to his stomach. 

***

“No!”

Shouting is useless. Pidge knows that. But when Zethrid drives a fist into Lance’s stomach, his legs go out and his eyes go wide with the strangled sound that comes from his throat. Pidge can’t NOT shout. She can’t do nothing. How can she? He saved her. 

Oh god, Zethrid isn’t stopping. She strikes over and over, and Pidge tries to launch herself up, broken fingers and missing bayard be darned, but someone is holding her back. Probably Hunk. But she’s sure he would be moving too if it weren’t for the gun in his face. 

How many guards are there in here now? Keith and Allura are being physically restrained because they tried to rush Zethrid and Ezor themselves. Shiro is shouting and there’s a gun in his face, too. Pidge doesn’t even know what she’s saying anymore, but she thinks she’s screaming. 

How strong is Zethrid? She and Ezor are both half Galran; if Ezor could pick her up with one hand, what are Zethrid’s blows to an unprotected torso doing to Lance? His body is twisting, trying to twist out of reach, but Ezor keeps him pinned. His legs keep trying to curl up, but they’re not getting very far anymore. He can’t even scream. All that’s coming out is strangled grunts and high-pitched sounds that don’t require much air. 

They’re killing him. They want to kill him but they don’t want to make it easy. 

No. No no no no no, Lance doesn’t deserve this, oh god. 

They can’t stop it. The element of surprise is long gone. So is the advantage of numbers.

Lance is going to die. Pidge is crying and she isn’t sure when she started, but Hunk is still holding onto her and she thinks he is, too, but she hasn’t looked back to know for sure. Lance’s eyes are flickering, open and closed; she has just enough presence of mind left to keep looking at him. To try to catch them. To...something.

To what? 

A klaxxon goes off, red lights flash. Something over the intercom about a hull breach. Zethrid, mercifully, stops her assault and everyone else goes quiet. Shocked into silence. She exchanges a glance with Ezor. They both look annoyed by the interruption, scowling at Lance hanging in their grasp.

Pidge is holding a breath. Please go, please just go…

Finally Ezor shrugs. They drop Lance and hurry from the cell with their contingent of guards. 

He crumples to the floor, and he should be breathing now. Pidge expected him to be gasping the way she was after Ezor let her go; why isn’t he? He doesn’t even cry out. 

“Lance!” 

They’re all crowded over him in an instant, except for Krolia who goes to listen at the door. Lance’s fingers are scrabbling at his neck, his chest heaving. 

“He can’t breathe; his windpipe could have collapsed,” Shiro says urgently. “Allura…!”

She pushes to the front of the group around him. “Keep him calm. Someone hold his hands!” 

Hunk pulls his hands down away from his neck and holds onto them. Pidge would have, but she really only has much use of one of her own. Instead she reaches with her uninjured hand to run fingers gently through his hair.

“Lance, it’s okay, it’s okay…” she trails.

“Hang on, buddy,” Hunk is saying.

Allura reaches for his neck, spreading her bounds hands as wide as she can to wrap them gently around Lance’s throat. He seems to calm down when the warm blue glow of her alchemy engulfs her hands and encircles his neck. In a moment or so he gasps in a deeper breath, and some of the tension goes out of his body and his face. 

Lance curls on his side when Allura and Hunk release him, coughing from deep in his chest and spitting blood onto the floor. He can breathe, but every breath is coming out with a moan.

Pidge feels sick herself, and it isn’t just the pain from her fingers or the soreness of her own throat. “Lance…?”

“Allura,” Keith asks quietly. “Were you able to get a sense of how bad the rest of it is?”

Allura swallows. “I—” Noise outside the door cuts her off. 

“I need everyone else over here!” Krolia calls. “When this door opens, we need to overwhelm the guard.”

Pidge and Allura stay with Lance, but the others crowd on either side of the entrance. Pidge finds herself gripping Lance’s shoulder, tense and ready for the fight if she’s needed. She has one good hand after all, and she refuses to let anyone else hurt Lance if she can do anything about it…

But the door opens, and the guard is already on the ground.

“Hey, it’s the mice!” Hunk whoops. Pidge can just see them through everyone’s legs. Platt digs out the guard’s keys and tosses them to Hunk, who starts to undo everyone’s cuffs as the mice bound over to Allura. 

“Hello, little friends.” She smiles, but it seems to be a strain for her right now. All four of them are glancing between her and Lance on the ground as they chatter; they seem worried about him, too. “What? Where?” Allura asks.

“What are they saying?” Keith asks. He comes back to them with the cuff keys, and Allura reaches up to let him unlock hers. 

“Coran is trying rescue us.” Her eyebrows go up as they chatter more. “And he has help? Acxa?”

“What?” Keith unlocks Pidge’s cuffs for her next, being careful of her fingers, before kneeling beside Lance to get his off. His arms go around his middle as soon as his arms are free. “Can we move him?” Keith asks.

Allura makes a face. “I don’t know that we have a choice. We need to get out of here while we have the chance. Our window may be small. I believe I can heal him, but it is going to take more time than we likely have right now. I ‘was’ able to get a sense for his injuries and they are...th-they are extensive.”

Allura gets to her feet to speak with Keith, giving Pidge room to scoot around in front of Lance where he can see her more easily. Or where he could, if his eyes were open. She brushes his hair back again and they flicker open. 

She wishes she had any idea what to say. “Lance…”

“You...okay?” he asks.

Pidge scoffs quietly. “Me? I’ll be fine. You’re an idiot.”

Lance sort of smiles, and reaches clumsily for her good hand. She lets him take it. He looks like he wants to say something else but then he’s coughing again, crying out as he does it. His eyes clench shut, and when he opens them again they’re damp with tears of pain. 

She doesn’t let go of his hand, even when Hunk comes to scoop him up carefully, apologizing the whole time for how it hurts him. Pidge squeezes his hand until it goes limp when he passes out in Hunk’s arms.

A hand lands on her shoulder as they move out. Shiro. 

“Pidge...you know this isn’t your fault, right?”

She blinks. “I-I uh...yeah. Yeah, I know, I just...let’s just get out of here…” He raises an eyebrow at her, but they don’t have time to get into it now. 

***

In space they have to seperate to go to their lions, Shiro calling to Hunk and Allura to be ready to tow Red when Keith makes it out with Acxa. 

“Pidge? Do you need help? How’s your hand? Romelle could—”

“I’ll make it. You need all the help you can get anyway. Just...keep your comms open so we know how Lance is?”

“Sure thing…”

Pidge knows she’s right, but that doesn’t make it any easier to watch Shiro, Krolia, and Romelle float away into the black lion with an injured Coran and an unconscious Lance. It doesn’t make it any easier to jet into her own lion alone, her stomach aching with worry and her fingers sending shards of pain up her left arm. 

She’s able to dig out an extra undershirt to tear a strip from to wrap the fingers in while they wait for Keith. She doesn’t have anything to act as a splint - that she can think of on short notice, anyway - so she ties them to the next finger to keep them as straight as possible for now. There’s barely enough time to get the makeshift job tied off with her teeth before Keith is on the comms telling them to fire at the ship.

Once they’re far enough away from the damaged pirate ship to be sure no one is following them, Pidge scans for somewhere they can land. 

“It’ll take maybe half a varga or so to get there with our power cores in their current state. How’s Lance?”

There’s a moment of silence before Shiro answers, as if he’s gathering his thoughts, and when he does speak it’s quiet. “I...from we can tell with the medical scanners we do have, he’ll make it until we can land. After that...I’m afraid it’ll be up to you, Princess...the damage is just too severe; i-if you can’t...ah…”

When Shiro trails off to a stop after his voice wavers, Pidge shuts off her audio on her end so she can still hear the open channel, but no one can hear her. She can feel pressure building in her chest even though she knows Allura can fix it. She said she could. She will. 

“I understand,” Allura is saying now. It’s nearly whispered, but it’s there, and she’s saying she’ll do everything she can. Of course she will. She can do it. But…

Pidge cries anyway, and she doesn’t want the others to hear that. They don’t need that right now. They have their own worries. They all care. 

Something soft brushes her cheek, and she realizes her trash alien friends are floating over her shoulder, blinking at her with what she’s come to recognize is concern. 

“Hey guys…” The blue one floats down into her arms to let her hold it and stroke it’s fur, and she giggles weakly. “Thanks.”

She winces again as Shiro curses quietly over the comms, though, when Lance seems to wake up and they can all hear his groans in the background.

“Lance, it’s okay...we’re safe. Hang on, all right? We’re landing as soon as we can so Allura can help you.”

“Wh-where...where’s...Pidge…”

“She’s in her lion. She’s fine.”

Lance’s voice is faint, but insistent. “Need to...to tell her…”

Shiro’s voice in a whisper then, into his comms. “Pidge?” As if checking she’s there.

She swallows and keys open her end of the audio again. “I’m here, Shiro.”

“Okay...hey, Lance? She can hear you. We’ve got a channel open.”

“Hmm…?”

“She can hear you.”

“Oh…” He’s still breathing heavily, and Pidge can’t help but grimace at the hitches. “Pidge? Pidge…?”

She forces more brightness into her voice before she answers. “Hey, Lance. I’m here.”

“Hey…” He coughs. “Ah...Pidge...earlier...was trying to say it was worth it...okay? Y-You need to know that. Okay?”

Pidge bites back a sob. “Thank you…”

She can almost hear him grinning like an idiot, even if he isn’t actually doing it right now. “Any...any time.”

“You’re gonna be fine, Lance.”

“Yeah,” he says lightly. “Sure, you know...takes more than...turning my insides to pulp to take me out.”

A huff and a snort that are clearly Shiro and Keith, respectively.

“It had better,” Keith says tightly.

“Aww...Mullet, you do care.”

“Shut up and don’t die.”

Pidge doesn’t try to stop herself from laughing, because it’s one of the few things holding her together right now. 

***

When they land Pidge sprints for the black lion with the others. She hangs back to let Allura get to Lance, but she can still tell how pale he is...how close this is going to be. He’s since lost consciousness again, and his armor is gone now. He’s limp on the open stasis pod’s bed in just his black undersuit, breathing shallowly. Allura sits on the edge and rests her hands carefully on his torso as the glow comes to them again.

Pidge doesn’t realize she’s shaking until an arm wraps around her shoulders. Shiro again. When she glances up he looks so tired, but something in his face also tells her he understands what she’s feeling. She doesn’t resist when he pulls her in; she wraps her arms around his waist and gives in to the embrace, instead. 

“He’ll be fine, Katie…”

It takes so long. Almost another half a varga. Lance wakes up halfway through, his eyes more clear than the last time Pidge saw them back on the ship. He lies quietly, the rest of the tension in his muscles slowly ebbing as Allura heals him.

“I’m sorry this is taking so long...the injuries are more complex. But you’ll be all right, Lance.” she says reassuringly. 

When she stops, she slumps. Shiro jumps forward with a hand to steady her, and Lance reaches out as he sits up. 

“Princess!”

“Allura? Are you all right?”

“I am fine, Lance. Are you? There may still be some bruising left to heal, but…”

“I’m okay. Kinda sore, but I’m not dying or anything anymore, that I know of; that’s always a plus.” He swallows. “Thank you.”

Allura hugs him, and Hunk has picked up the portable medical scanner. “Yeah, Lance, looks like you’re okay now. Pretty much. But seriously man, could you NEVER scare me like that again? That’d be great.”

Lance laughs sheepishly, and beside Hunk Keith just snorts and crosses his arms. 

Pidge hasn’t moved from her spot a few feet away, and she isn’t sure why she can’t. She can’t until Lance looks around as if he’s missing something, anyway. When he catches her eyes she knows he was looking for her.

“Hey, Pidge…”

Her eyes fill with tears again before she can tell them not to do that; to hide it she hurries forward to the bed and gets a knee up onto it so she can latch her arms around his neck. 

Lance doesn’t seem to mind. He buries his face in her shoulder and holds onto her just as tightly. The others give them some space.

“Did you mean what you said?” Pidge asks.

“Of course I did. I just...when she...I-I wasn’t gonna let anything happen to you, Pidge. Not if I could help it.” 

She swallows. “I...don’t want anything to happen to you, either.”

There should be more. She knows there is, somewhere. Deeper. But it’s not coming out right now. For now it’s enough to hold Lance and know he’s alive.

“I’m right here, Pidge.”

“I know.”


End file.
